Transcript of AE 956 - Australian English: How To Pronounce /e/ vs /æ/

G'day, you mob. Pete here, from Aussie English. Today we have an advanced pronunciation lesson where we are going to go through the two vowel sounds /e/ and /æ/. Are you ready? Let's go. All right, so today's episode is courtesy of my wife, who is from Brazil and finds these two sounds incredibly difficult to differentiate between. So, Kel, this one is for you and obviously anyone else who finds these sounds difficult.

Just before we get into it, guys, in the description below, there is a free PDF lesson worksheet for today's lesson that you can download and print so that you can read and write and take notes as we go. So, go check that out. So, today's lesson is going to be broken up into four different parts. In part one, we are going to go over the vowel sound /e/. In part two, we're going to go over the vowel sound /æ/.

In part three, we are going to do a comparative pronunciation exercise using minimal pairs, these are words that will only differ in whether they have the /e/ vowel sound or the /æ/ vowel sound. So, this is where you will learn to pronounce the differences. And then in part four, we're going to train your listening skills to be able to differentiate between these two sounds when you are listening in English.

If you'd like access to the detailed video tutorials that I've created to show you how to position your mouth, to say the vowel sounds /e/ and /æ/, make sure that you keep watching in this video because I'll tell you how to do that later on.

All right, so let's get into part one. So, in part one here, we're first going to go over the /ɛ/ vowel sound, which is represented by this symbol in the international phonetic alphabet. Remember, for those of you listening to this episode as a podcast, check out the YouTube videos so that you can see what I'm displaying on screen. So, /e/ is a short vowel sound in English and you'll hear /ɛ/ in words like, "bet, men and said".

The vowel sound will usually be spelt in these different ways. I'll display them on screen, but you can see that there are about eight different ways that this vowel sound can be spelt. So, let's practise this sound. In this exercise I want you to listen and repeat after me, I'm going to first pronounce the vowel sound /e/ three times and then I'm going to say ten different words that have this vowel sound in them. You ready? Let's go.

"e. e. e. Bed. Head. Set. Ex. Dead. Fed. Net. Merry. Guest. Kettle." Good job. Now it's time for part two. So, now we're going to go over the vowel sound /æ/, which is also a short vowel sound in English. This is represented by this symbol in Australian English. /æ/ is a short vowel sound and you'll hear the sound /æ/ in words like, "bat, map and lad".

The vowel sound will usually be spelt one of three ways which I'll display on screen now. Note there's a long vowel sound version of /æ/ which is said as "aaa", and you'll hear this in words like "sad, man and land". We'll cover the long /æ/ vowel sound in another episode. So, let's practise the sound /æ/, I'm going to say this sound three times and then I'm going to go through a list of ten different words that have the /æ/ vowel sound in them.

You ready? Let's go. "æ. æ. æ. Bat. Had. Sat. Axe. Dad. Fad. Nat. Marry. Gast. Cattle. Now it's time for part three, so in this section, we're going to work on our pronunciation of these two sounds side by side using minimal pairs. But before we get into that.

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The course helps students level up their speaking confidence, allows them to communicate easily and effectively and most importantly, to sound more Australian. When you join the Australian pronunciation course today, you're going to get instant access to detailed video tutorials for every single vowel sound and consonant sound in Australian English.

You're going to get video exercises and tongue twisters so that you can perfect these sounds and sound much more like an English native speaker. And you're going to get access to 25 advanced pronunciation lessons that cover things like the Australian "aaa", the syllabic N and the syllabic L, all of these advanced things that you can learn to sound much more like a native Australian English speaker.

So, join today and let's level up your pronunciation skills together. I'll see you in there. Anyway, back to the lesson. So, minimal pairs are incredibly important for learning how to pronounce the differences, the distinct differences, the subtle differences between two different sounds in English.

In this exercise I'm going to repeat 10 different words, the first one will have the short /e/ vowel sound and the second one will have the short /æ/ vowel sound. Are you ready? Let's go. "Bet. Bat. Head. Had. Set. Sat. Ex. Axe. Dead. Dad. Fed. Fad. Net. Nat. Merry. Marry. Guest. Gast. Kettle. Cattle. How'd you go? Not easy, huh? All right, now it's time for part four.

So, in this last section, we're going to test your listening skills to see if you can differentiate between these two very similar sounds, /e/ and /æ/ in Australian English. Don't be discouraged if you find this difficult. Just repeat this exercise multiple times and it'll get easier and easier. This is how you're going to train your ear to hear the difference between these two very similar sounds.

So, I'm going to display the two different minimal pairs for each word pair on screen. But I'm only going to say one of each one of these. I want you to write down which one you hear or write down the letter A for the /e/ vowel sound and the letter B for the /æ/ vowel sound. And then I'll give you the answers at the end. So, are you ready to go? Let's do it. "Bet. Had. Set. Axe. Dad. Fed. Net. Merry. Gast. Cattle." Good job, guys.

And for those of you listening to this episode as a podcast, the answers were A, B, A, B, B, A, A, A, B, B. How'd you go? So, that's it for today's episode, guys. Don't forget, if you would like to get access to the Australian pronunciation course, go down into the description and click the link or go to AussieEnglish.com.au/apc.

Besides that, like the video, if you liked it, share it with a friend who's interested in English and make sure that you subscribe to the channel and smash that bell notification button if you would like to see the next lesson coming soon. I'm Pete, this is Aussie English. Thank you for joining me and I'll see you next time.